1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a physiological sensor controller, a physiological sensor system and a non-transitory computer readable medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to a physiological sensor controller in which a combination between a physiological sensor and a patient can be verified in a facilitated manner without complexity, a physiological sensor system and a non-transitory computer readable medium.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
In the field of medical instruments, a physiological sensor (physiological monitoring device) is used and positioned on a body of a patient (examinee) of home care at his or her home. A doctor (or other medical professionals) in a medical facility or hospital remotely monitors the patient's progress by use of the physiological sensor. The physiological sensor measures physiological information of the patient and outputs a measurement signal. Examples of the physiological information are a body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, ECG (electrocardiogram), respiratory rate and the like. The measurement signal is transmitted to a physiological sensor controller (physiological monitoring apparatus) for controlling the physiological sensor.
In a physiological sensor system (patient monitoring system) including the physiological sensor and the physiological sensor controller, it is important to keep high reliability of the physiological information. It is necessary to perform verification of correctness in a combination between the physiological sensor and the patient, so as to prevent occurrence of impersonation of a stranger for the patient, mismatch between the disease of the patient and the type of the physiological sensor, and the like.
JP-A 2013-192859 discloses testing of alcohol information of a driver of a vehicle with a purpose of preventing a drunken driver from driving. An ID information of an alcohol sensor and a verification image of a face of the driver are acquired at the same time as a component of alcohol in the body of the driver is measured by the alcohol sensor. It is checked according to the verification image whether the driver is identified correctly and whether the alcohol sensor is a properly used type. It is possible to avoid the impersonation of a stranger for the driver, and avoid fraud in the testing by use of an improper product of the alcohol sensor different from the properly used type.
The patient (examinee) positions the physiological sensor from the medical facility to his or her body at home. For example, the patient with a heart disease positions the physiological sensor on the left chest area for measuring the heart rate, ECG (electrocardiogram) or the like. In general, the physiological sensor frequently becomes removed from the body temporarily for the reason of taking a bath or the like. The physiological sensor is positioned on the body newly during a period of the measurement for plural times.
In case the physiological sensor is removed, there occurs abnormality in receptivity of the measurement signal at the physiological sensor controller. A reason for the abnormality in the receptivity can be temporary removal of the physiological sensor at the time of bathing, and also can be an error in delivering the physiological sensor of a certain type to the patient. In order to cope with the occurrence of the abnormality in the receptivity, it is suggested to provide a function of performing a retry for verification between the patient and the physiological sensor.
An example of the abnormality in the receptivity of the measurement signal is instantaneous interruption of a communication path at a short time in addition to that due to the removal of the physiological sensor. For this example, there is no possibility of an error in delivery of the physiological sensor. The use of the retry for verification is not favorable on the side of the patient because of complexity.
Verification of a combination between the physiological sensor and the patient may be possible by use of the method in JP-A 2013-192859 and utilization of the ID information of the physiological sensor and information of the face of the patient. However, the verification requires additional steps of operation because of use of the verification image. According to the known techniques, there is no suggestion of reducing the complexity in relation to the retry for verification particularly for situations without requirement of the retry for verification.